Parents' Guide to the CCSS

What’s Shifting?

What to Look for in the Backpack?

What Can You Do?

• Your child will now read more non-fiction in each grade level.

• Look for your kids to have more reading assignments based on real-life events, such as biographies, articles and historical stories.

• Read non-fiction books with your children. Find ways to make reading fun and exciting.

• Reading more non-fiction texts will help your child learn about the world through reading.

• Look for your kids to bring home more fact-based books about the world. For instance, your 1^st Grader or Kindergartener might read Clyde Robert Bulla’s A Tree is a Plant. This book lets students read and learn about science.

• Know what non-fiction books are grade-level appropriate and make sure your children have access to such books.

• Your child will read challenging texts very closely, so they can make sense of what they read and draw their own conclusions.

• Your kids will have reading and writing assignments that might ask them to retell or write about key parts of a story or book. For example, your 2^nd or 3^rd Grader might be asked to read aloud Faith D’Aluisio’s non-fiction book titled What the World Eats and retell facts from the story.

• Provide more challenging texts for your kids to read. Show them how to dig deeper into difficult pieces.

• When it comes to writing or retelling a story, your child will use "evidence" gathered from the text to support what they say.

• Look for written assignments that ask your child to draw on concrete examples from the text that serve as evidence. Evidence means examples from the book that your child will use to support a response or conclusion. This is different from many opinion questions that have been used in the past.

• Ask your child to provide evidence in everyday discussions and disagreements.

• Your child will learn how to write from what they read.

• Look for writing assignments that ask your child to make arguments in writing using evidence. For 4^th and 5^th graders, this might mean reading and writing about The Kids Guide to Money, a non-fictional book by Steve Otfinoski.

• Encourage writing at home. Write together using evidence and details.

• Your child will have an increased academic vocabulary.

• Look for assignments that stretch your child’s vocabulary and teach them that “language is power.”

• Read often to babies, toddlers, preschoolers and children.

What’s Shifting?

What to Look for in the Backpack?

What Can You Do?

• Your child will work more deeply in fewer topics, which will ensure full understanding. (less is more!)

• Look for assignments that require students to show their work and explain in writing how they arrived at an answer.

• Know what concepts are important for your child based on their grade level and spend time working on those concepts.

• Your child will keep building on learning year after year, starting with a strong foundation.

• Look for assignments that build on one another. For example, students will focus on adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Once these areas are mastered, they will focus on fractions. You should be able to see the progression in the topics they learn

• Know what concepts are important for your child based on their grade level and spend time working on those concepts.

• Your child will spend time practicing  and memorizing math facts.

• Your child might have assignments that focus on memorizing and mastering basic math facts, which are important for success in more advanced math problems.

• Be aware of what concepts your child struggled with last year and support your child in those challenge areas moving forward.

• Your child will understand why the math works and be asked to talk about and prove their understanding.

• Your child might have assignments that include demonstrations of the Standards for Mathematical Practice. These are the same for all grades and   describe a set of skills and processes that all students should develop as part of their study of mathematics.

• Help your child know and memorize basic math facts. Ask your child to “do the math” that pops up in daily life.

• Your child will now be asked to use math in real-world situations.

• Look for math assignments that are based on the real world. For instance, homework for 5^th graders might include adding fractions as part of a dessert recipe or determining how much pizza friends ate based on fractions.

• Provide time every day for your child to work on math at home.